Google has announced a major update for Google Maps. The updated Google Maps has brought Pegman back in action and the update comes with some new features, including Earth Tours, Preview Steps and Waze traffic incident reports.

The updated Google Maps feature Pegman, the mascot of Street View who was earlier left the service, has come back to enable exploration of the world. Users can now explore new places in Google Maps, through Street View, by clicking or tapping on the Pegman. As Street View now covered over 50 locations globally, Google Maps now allows to explore all with the help of Pegman.

A single click on Pegman lighten up the Street View imaginary areas in blue. Users can then take a street-level preview by hover over any highlighted road and then click to dive into that location. Zooming into the roads further display blue circles which indicate locations with user-uploaded photos, including Android Photo Spheres, while yellow circles provide in-depth view of restaurants, museums and more.

Google Maps service now also comes with Earth Tours which provides 3D imagery of buildings and terrain for thousands of locations from above. Users can experience Earth Tours by clicking on the Earth Tours icon when viewing Google Maps on any WebGL-enabled browsers.

Google has also added some features to enhance on-the-go navigation and directions support of Google Maps. The updated mapping service comes with “Preview steps” option, within direction card, which provides step-by-step preview of the trip before starting the navigation. Besides, the update comes with Waze traffic incident reports. After acquiring Waze, Google is now all-set to provide traffic data in an accurate manner within Google Maps. Users will now able to see congestion along the route and real-time incidents on the map, along with data reported by Waze network. On the best part, traffic incident reports will also be available on the mobile version of Google Maps, alongside the web.

Watch video showing new features in updated Google Maps:

With all such features and tweaks, Google Maps update is said to be available in the coming future. Users who have opted into the new Google Maps preview, these features will start rolling out today.